Managing an archived file system

ABSTRACT

Provided are a method, system, and article of manufacture, wherein a determination is made that an archive that includes at least one file is present in association with an operating system file system. An additional file system is generated for accessing the archive. The generated additional file system is included in the operating system file system. An application is allowed to access the at least one file via the generated additional file system.

BACKGROUND

1. Field

The disclosure relates to a method, system, and article of manufacturefor managing an archived file system.

2. Background

A file archiver is an application that may combine one or more filesinto one archive file, or a series of archive files. Many file archiversuse data compression in order to reduce the size of the archive file.Certain file archivers take a plurality of files and concatenate thecontents of the plurality of files sequentially into the archive file.The process of generating an archive file may be termed archiving orpacking. Reconstructing the original files from an archive file may betermed unarchiving, unpacking or extracting.

One or more files or directories may be compressed and stored in anarchive. The archive may have to be decompressed before an applicationcan access the files or directories that are compressed and stored inthe archived. For example, in certain versions of the Unix operatingsystem the “tape archive” (TAR) file format may be used. On certainWindows platforms, the ZIP archive format may be used to archive files.

Different archiving software may use different compression anddecompression algorithms, and may also use different encryption anddecryption mechanisms to restrict access to the files or directoriesstored in the archive. In addition, different archiving software mayprovide different interfaces to add files to an archive, and to extractand access the files from the archive.

If an application needs to access files or directories that have beenstored in an archive, the archive may have to be uncompressed and/orunarchived by the archiving software before the application can accessthe files or the directories. The archive file cannot be directly usedby the application or by operating system commands for manipulatingfiles or directories, such as, commands for copying files, listing thefiles in a directory, etc.

SUMMARY OF THE DESCRIBED EMBODIMENTS

Provided are a method, system, and article of manufacture, wherein adetermination is made that an archive that includes at least one file ispresent in association with an operating system file system. Anadditional file system is generated for accessing the archive. Thegenerated additional file system is included in the operating systemfile system. An application is allowed to access the at least one filevia the generated additional file system.

In additional embodiments, the additional file system is a virtualarchives file system. The archive is decompressed via a decompressionmodule of an archive processing module corresponding to the archive,wherein decompressing the archive generates the at least one file. Theat least one file is exposed to the application, via at least oneinterface provided by the virtual archives file system.

In yet additional embodiments, the virtual archives file system ismounted to a directory. The at least one file is stored in the directoryto expose the at least one file to the application. The applicationaccesses the directory to perform an operation on the at least one file.

In further embodiments, the additional file system receives a requestfrom the application to access the at least one file. The additionalfile system provides the at least one file to the application, whereinthe at least one file has already been stored in the additional filesystem via a decompression of the archive, and wherein the decompressionof the archive occurs before receiving the request to access the atleast one file.

In yet further embodiments, the additional file system is accessible tothe application via an Input/Output (I/O) manager provided by anoperating system that supports that operating system file system, andwherein the additional file system allows at least read and writeoperations on the at least one file via the I/O manager.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Referring now to the drawings in which like reference numbers representcorresponding parts throughout:

FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of a computing environment inaccordance with certain embodiments;

FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram that includes additional elementsincluded in the computing environment of FIG. 1, in accordance withcertain embodiments;

FIG. 3 illustrates a block diagram of a virtual archives file system, inaccordance with certain embodiments;

FIG. 4 illustrates a block diagram that shows an exemplary archive andthe corresponding files/directories exposed by the virtual archives filesystem, in accordance with certain embodiments;

FIG. 5 illustrates a first flowchart for managing archived files, inaccordance with certain embodiments;

FIG. 6 illustrates a second flowchart for managing archived files, inaccordance with certain embodiments; and

FIG. 7 illustrates an architecture of a computing system, wherein incertain embodiments the computing environment of FIG. 1 may beimplemented in accordance with the architecture of the computing system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, reference is made to the accompanyingdrawings which form a part hereof and which illustrate severalembodiments. It is understood that other embodiments may be utilized andstructural and operational changes may be made. For example, while thefollowing description describes embodiments with reference to a backupof data, it is understood that alternative embodiments may be utilizedfor archiving of data, migration of data, etc.

Certain embodiments provide a file system that virtualizes archives asan operating system file system, such that applications like Webservers, File Transmission Protocol (FTP) servers, and operating systemcommands can access the files in they archives directly by using theoperating system provided I/O system calls.

FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of a computing environment 100 inaccordance with certain embodiments. The computational environment 100includes a computational platform 102 that may comprise any suitablecomputational platform, including those presently known in the art, suchas, personal computers, workstations, mainframes, midrange computers,network appliances, palm top computers, telephony devices, bladecomputers, hand held computers, etc. While the computational platform102 has not been shown coupled to a network, in certain embodiments thecomputational platform 102 may be coupled to a network, such as, theInternet, an intranet, a storage area network, a wide area network, alocal area network, etc.

The computational platform 102 includes one or more operating systemfile systems 104, one or more archives 106, at least one archiveprocessing module 108, one or more applications 110, and an I/O manager112.

The operating system file system 104 includes any suitable operatingsystem file system, including those presently known in the art, such asthe Network File System (NFS), the File Allocation Table (FAT) filesystem, the Journal File System (JFS), New Technology File System(NTFS), etc. The operating system file systems 104 included in thecomputational platform 102 may be supported by the operating system (notshown) that executes on the computational platform 102.

The archive 106 may include, any suitable archive, including thosepresently known in the art, such as a ZIP archive, a Java Archive (JAR),a Tape Archive (TAR), a GZIP archive, etc. The archive 106 may includeone or more files that may have undergone compression before archiving.

The archive processing module 108, also referred to as a file archiver,may include a compression module 114 and a decompression module 116. Thecompression module 114 may compress files that are to be archived in thearchive 106. For example, a ZIP compression module may compress aplurality of files and store the resulting ZIP archive in the archive106. The decompression module 116 may decompress the files stored in thearchive 106. For example, the decompression module 116 may decompresscompressed files stored in a ZIP archive. While embodiments will beillustrated with compression and decompression of archives, alternativeembodiments may utilize the packing and unpacking of archives, inaddition to or instead of the compression and decompression of archives.

The application 110 may include any suitable application or command,including those presently known in the art, that are capable ofinterfacing with the operating system file system 104 via the I/Omanager 112, where the I/O manager 112 may be provided by the operatingsystem that executes in the computational platform 102. The I/O manager112 allows the application 110 to perform I/O on unarchived files storedin the operating system file system 104.

In certain embodiments, the operating system file system 104 includes avirtual archives file system 118 in addition to other operating systemfile systems 120, such as, NFS, JFS, FAT, NTFS, etc. The virtualarchives file system 118 allows the application 110 to access the filesstored in the archive 106 without any decompression by using the exposedfiles and directories 120 generated by the virtual archives file system118.

Therefore, FIG. 1 illustrates a virtual archives file system 118 thatthat virtualizes the archives 106 as an operating system file system104, such that applications 114 like Web servers, File TransmissionProtocol (FTP) servers, and other operating system commands can accessthe files in archives 106 directly by using the operating systemprovided I/O system calls in the I/O manager 112.

FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram that includes additional elementsincluded in the computing environment 100 of FIG. 1, in accordance withcertain embodiments.

The applications 110 included in the computational platform 102 of thecomputing environment 100 may include applications, such as a listcommand 200, a copy command 202, a remove command 204, a Web server 206application, etc., where the list command 200 lists the files in adirectory, where the copy command 202 copies a file from one location toanother, where the remove command 204 removes a file from a directory,and where the Web server 206 application may attempt to perform I/O withfiles stored in the computational platform 102.

The I/O manager 112 may include various I/O system calls, such as open208, close 210, read 212, write 214, where the open system call 208opens a file, the close system call 210 closes a file, the read systemcall 212 reads from a file, and the write system call writes to a file.Applications 110, such as the Web server 206, may use the I/O systemcalls in the I/O manager 112 to access the files stored in thecomputational platform 102.

The archive processing module 108 may include a GZIP utility 216, a TARutility 218, and a JAR utility 220, where the GZIP utility 216 maycreate archives in the GZIP format, the TAR utility 218 may createarchives in the TAR format, and the JAR utility 220 may create archivesin the JAR format.

The operating system file system 104 may include file systems such asNTFS 222, JFS 224, FAT 226, etc., in addition to the virtual archivesfile system 118. The virtual archives file system 118 includes exposedarchive files and directories 118, where the exposed archive files anddirectories 118 are used by the applications 110 to access the files inthe archive 106, where the archive 106 stores archived files in formatssuch as GZIP, JAR, TAR, etc. However, the applications 110 do not haveto execute the archive processing modules 108 to access the archivedfiles stored in the archive 106, but instead access the archived filesdirectly via the exposed files and directories 120 of the virtualarchives file system 118.

FIG. 3 illustrates a block diagram of the virtual archives file system118, in accordance with certain embodiments.

The virtual archives file system 118 may be implemented as one of thekernel modules of the operating system file system. The virtual archivesfile system 118 implements the kernel file system specific system callssuch as mount 300, unmount 302, read 304, write 306, open 308, release310, read directory 312, and other file system specific calls 314. Forexample, the mount command 300 may carry the archive file as one of thearguments to the virtual archives file system 118 and may mount thevirtual archives file system 118 into a specified file directory onwhich the files and the directories of the archive would be laid likeother files and directories.

FIG. 4 illustrates a block diagram that shows an exemplary archive andthe corresponding files/directories exposed by the virtual archives filesystem 118, in accordance with certain embodiments.

In FIG. 4, an exemplary archive 400 named “testsoftware.tar” includesthe following files 402:

-   /testsoftware/bin/test./exe-   /testsoftware/lib/core.lib-   /testsoftware/bin/core.so-   /testsoftware/doc/guide.pdf.

When the archive “testsoftware.tar” is mounted 404 as a virtual archivesfile system 118 to the directory /usr 406, then the application 110 willhave access to the exposed files and directories 408 as follows:

-   /usr/testsoftware/bin/test.exe-   /usr/testsoftware/lib/core.lib-   /usr/testsoftware/bin/core.so-   /usr/testsoftware/doc/guide.pdf.

In certain embodiments, if a user types the command ‘Is’ in the kornshell, the user would see ‘testsoftware’ as one of the directories under/usr, and similarly ‘bin’, ‘lib’, and ‘doc’ would be seen as directoriesunder /usr/testsoftware. An editor command would be able to open thefile guide.pdf by using any of the editing applications included in theapplications 110. Similarly text.exe can be executed from thedirectory/usr/testsofware/bin and supporting files can be loadeddirectly by the operating system loader.

Therefore, FIG. 4 illustrates certain embodiments in which even though aplurality of files are stored in an archive, the plurality of files canbe individually accessed directly by the applications 110 by using theexposed archive files and directories 120 stored in the virtual archivesfile system 118. The virtual archives file system 118 uses the otheroperating system file systems 120, such as JFS, NFS, FAT, etc., to readthe actual archives and different compression modules 114 anddecompression modules 116 to handle the different types of archives. Thevirtual archives file system 118 loads the archives from the storageusing the associated file system when the virtual archives file system118 is mounted to a directory. The virtual archives file system 118 mayalso call the decompression module 116 corresponding to an archive, whenthe virtual archives file system 118 receives a read system call fromthe application 110. Additionally, the virtual archives file system 118may call the compression module 114 corresponding to an archive, whenthe virtual archives file system 118 receives a write system call fromthe application 110.

Therefore, FIG. 4 illustrates certain embodiments in which in responseto the mounting of the virtual archives file system 118, the exposedarchive files and directories 408 allow the applications 110 to directlyaccess the archived files without any archive processing modules 108being called by the applications 110.

FIG. 5 illustrates a first flowchart for managing archived files in thecomputing environment 100, in accordance with certain embodiments.Certain operations shown in the flowchart of FIG. 5 may be implementedin computing platform 102 by the virtual archives file system 118 and bythe applications 110.

Control starts at block 500, where the virtual archives file system 118is loaded in the computational platform 102. The operating system maymount (at block 502) the virtual archives file system 118 into adirectory.

On being mounted to a directory, the virtual archives file system 118may load (at block 504) an archive 106 from storage using thecorresponding operating system file system 104 with which the archive106 is associated. The virtual archives file system 118 decompresses (atblock 506) the archive 106 by using the corresponding decompressionmodule 116.

Subsequently, the virtual archives file system 118 may provide (at block508) interfaces to the files and directories of the decompressed archiveto applications 110 via the exposed archive files and directories 120generated by the virtual archives file system 118.

The virtual archives file system 118 determines (at block 510) whetherthere are additional archives to process. If so, control returns toblock 504. If not, applications 110 interface (at block 512) with thefiles and directories of the archive 106 via the virtual archives filesystem 118, such that the applications 110 do not have to requestdecompression or unarchiving of the archives 106.

Therefore, FIG. 5 illustrates certain environments in which a virtualarchives file system 118 exposes archived files, such that the archivedfiles can be accessed without decompression or unarchiving beingrequested by the user applications 110.

FIG. 6 illustrates a second flowchart for managing archived filesimplemented n the computing environment 100, in accordance with certainembodiments.

Control starts at block 600, where it is determined that an archive 106that includes at least one file is present in association with anoperating system file system 104. An additional file system is generated(at block 602) for accessing the archive, where the additional filesystem may include the virtual archives file system 118.

Control proceeds to block 604, where the generated additional filesystem 118 is included in the operating system file system 104. Anapplication 110 is allowed (at block 606) to access the at least onefile via the generated additional file system 118.

Therefore, FIGS. 1-6 illustrate certain embodiments that provide avirtual archives file system 118 that uses the archive 106 as a storagedevice and virtualizes the archive 106 as a file system to userapplications 110. The user applications 110 can perform different kindsof I/O operations, such as open, close, write, delete, list, etc., overthe archive without decomposing the archive. The user applications 110directly accesse the archives 106 using I/O system calls because thearchives are virtualized as an operating system file system to the userapplications 110.

For example, Web sites managed by a user mode Web server application canbe archived using a compression utility and stored in secondary devicessuch as a digital video disc (DVD). The archived Web sites can bedirectly accessed from the archives without decomposing the archive,just as the Web site was accessed before compression.

Therefore, certain embodiments provide a virtual archives file system118 that allows archived contents to be accessed as files anddirectories using the standard I/O interfaces provided by the operatingsystem. Disk space may be saved because users may create a file systemand assign the file system to one or more archives that are mounted tothe virtual archives file system 118, where the virtual archives filesystem 118 virtualizes the archives as an operating system file system.

Additionally, if the virtual archives file system 118 is mounted, theoperating system loader can load the executable modules from thearchives directly into memory and execute the modules.

ADDTIONAL EMBOMBODIMENT DETAILS

The described techniques may be implemented as a method, apparatus orarticle of manufacture involving software, firmware, micro-code,hardware and/or any combination thereof. The term “article ofmanufacture” as used herein refers to code or logic implemented in amedium, where such medium may comprise hardware logic [e.g., anintegrated circuit chip, Programmable Gate Array (PGA), ApplicationSpecific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), etc.] or a computer readable medium,such as magnetic storage medium (e.g., hard disk drives, floppy disks,tape, etc.), optical storage (CD-ROMs, optical disks, etc.), volatileand non-volatile memory devices [e.g., Electrically ErasableProgrammable Read Only Memory (EEPROM), Read Only Memory (ROM),Programmable Read Only Memory (PROM), Random Access Memory (RAM),Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), Static Random Access Memory (SRAM),flash, firmware, programmable logic, etc.]. Code in the computerreadable medium is accessed and executed by a processor. The medium inwhich the code or logic is encoded may also comprise transmissionsignals propagating through space or a transmission media, such as anoptical fiber, copper wire, etc. The transmission signal in which thecode or logic is encoded may further comprise a wireless signal,satellite transmission, radio waves, infrared signals, Bluetooth, etc.The transmission signal in which the code or logic is encoded is capableof being transmitted by a transmitting station and received by areceiving station, where the code or logic encoded in the transmissionsignal may be decoded and stored in hardware or a computer readablemedium at the receiving and transmitting stations or devices.Additionally, the “article of manufacture” may comprise a combination ofhardware and software components in which the code is embodied,processed, and executed. Of course, those skilled in the art willrecognize that many modifications may be made without departing from thescope of embodiments, and that the article of manufacture may compriseany information bearing medium. For example, the article of manufacturecomprises a storage medium having stored therein instructions that whenexecuted by a machine results in operations being performed.

Certain embodiments can take the form of an entirely hardwareembodiment, an entirely software embodiment or an embodiment containingboth hardware and software elements. In a preferred embodiment, theinvention is implemented in software, which includes but is not limitedto firmware, resident software, microcode, etc.

Furthermore, certain embodiments can take the form of a computer programproduct accessible from a computer usable or computer readable mediumproviding program code for use by or in connection with a computer orany instruction execution system. For the purposes of this description,a computer usable or computer readable medium can be any apparatus thatcan contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program foruse by or in connection with the instruction execution system,apparatus, or device. The medium can be an electronic, magnetic,optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system (orapparatus or device) or a propagation medium. Examples of acomputer-readable medium include a semiconductor or solid state memory,magnetic tape, a removable computer diskette, a random access memory(RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), a rigid magnetic disk and an opticaldisk. Current examples of optical disks include compact disk-read onlymemory (CD-ROM), compact disk-read/write (CD-R/W) and DVD.

The terms “certain embodiments”, “an embodiment”, “embodiment”,“embodiments”, “the embodiment”, “the embodiments”, “one or moreembodiments”, “some embodiments”, and “one embodiment” mean one or more(but not all) embodiments unless expressly specified otherwise. Theterms “including”, “comprising”, “having” and variations thereof mean“including but not limited to”, unless expressly specified otherwise.The enumerated listing of items does not imply that any or all of theitems are mutually exclusive, unless expressly specified otherwise. Theterms “a”, “an” and “the” mean “one or more”, unless expressly specifiedotherwise.

Devices that are in communication with each other need not be incontinuous communication with each other, unless expressly specifiedotherwise. In addition, devices that are in communication with eachother may communicate directly or indirectly through one or moreintermediaries. Additionally, a description of an embodiment withseveral components in communication with each other does not imply thatall such components are required. On the contrary a variety of optionalcomponents are described to illustrate the wide variety of possibleembodiments.

Further, although process steps, method steps, algorithms or the likemay be described in a sequential order, such processes, methods andalgorithms may be configured to work in alternate orders. In otherwords, any sequence or order of steps that may be described does notnecessarily indicate a requirement that the steps be performed in thatorder. The steps of processes described herein may be performed in anyorder practical. Further, some steps may be performed simultaneously, inparallel, or concurrently.

When a single device or article is described herein, it will be apparentthat more than one device/article (whether or not they cooperate) may beused in place of a single device/article. Similarly, where more than onedevice or article is described herein (whether or not they cooperate),it will be apparent that a single device/article may be used in place ofthe more than one device or article. The functionality and/or thefeatures of a device may be alternatively embodied by one or more otherdevices which are not explicitly described as having suchfunctionality/features. Thus, other embodiments need not include thedevice itself.

FIG. 7 illustrates an exemplary computer system 700, wherein in certainembodiments the computing platform 102 of the computing environment 100of FIG. 1 may be implemented in accordance with the computerarchitecture of the computer system 700. The computer system 700 mayalso be referred to as a system or a machine, and may include acircuitry 702 that may in certain embodiments include a processor 704.The system 700 may also include a memory 706 (e.g., a volatile memorydevice), and storage 708. Certain elements of the system 700 may or maynot be found in the computing platform 102. The storage 708 may includea non-volatile memory device (e.g., EEPROM, ROM, PROM, RAM, DRAM, SRAM,flash, firmware, programmable logic, etc.), magnetic disk drive, opticaldisk drive, tape drive, etc. The storage 708 may comprise an internalstorage device, an attached storage device and/or a network accessiblestorage device. The system 700 may include a program logic 710 includingcode 712 that may be loaded into the memory 706 and executed by theprocessor 704 or circuitry 702. In certain embodiments, the programlogic 710 including code 712 may be stored in the storage 708. Incertain other embodiments, the program logic 710 may be implemented inthe circuitry 702. Therefore, while FIG. 7 shows the program logic 710separately from the other elements, the program logic 710 may beimplemented in the memory 706 and/or the circuitry 702.

Certain embodiments may be directed to a method for deploying computinginstruction by a person or automated processing integratingcomputer-readable code into a computing system, wherein the code incombination with the computing system is enabled to perform theoperations of the described embodiments.

At least certain of the operations illustrated in FIGS. 5 and 6 may beperformed in parallel as well as sequentially. In alternativeembodiments, certain of the operations may be performed in a differentorder, modified or removed.

Furthermore, many of the software and hardware components have beendescribed in separate modules for purposes of illustration. Suchcomponents may be integrated into a fewer number of components ordivided into a larger number of components. Additionally, certainoperations described as performed by a specific component may beperformed by other components.

The data structures and components shown or referred to in FIGS. 1-7 aredescribed as having specific types of information. In alternativeembodiments, the data structures and components may be structureddifferently and have fewer, more or different fields or differentfunctions than those shown or referred to in the figures. Therefore, theforegoing description of the embodiments has been presented for thepurposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to beexhaustive or to limit the embodiments to the precise form disclosed.Many modifications and variations are possible in light of the aboveteaching.

1. A method, comprising: determining that an archive that includes atleast one file is present in association with an operating system filesystem; generating an additional file system for accessing the archive;including the generated additional file system in the operating systemfile system; and allowing an application to access the at least one filevia the generated additional file system.
 2. The method of claim 1,wherein the additional file system is a virtual archives file system,the method further comprising: decompressing the archive via adecompression module of an archive processing module corresponding tothe archive, wherein decompressing the archive generates the at leastone file; and exposing the at least one file to the application, via atleast one interface provided by the virtual archives file system.
 3. Themethod of claim 2, further comprising: mounting the virtual archivesfile system to a directory; storing, in the directory, the at least onefile to expose the at least one file to the application; accessing, bythe application, the directory to perform an operation on the at leastone file.
 4. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, bythe additional file system, a request from the application to access theat least one file; providing, by the additional file system, the atleast one file to the application, wherein the at least one file hasalready been stored in the additional file system via a decompression ofthe archive, and wherein the decompression of the archive occurs beforereceiving the request to access the at least one file.
 5. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the additional file system is accessible to theapplication via an I/O manager provided by an operating system thatsupports that operating system file system, and wherein the additionalfile system allows at least read and write operations on the at leastone file via the I/O manager.
 6. A system, comprising: memory; andprocessor coupled to the memory, wherein the processor performs: (i)determining that an archive that includes at least one file is presentin association with an operating system file system; (ii) generating anadditional file system for accessing the archive; (iii) including thegenerated additional file system in the operating system file system;and (iv) allowing an application to access the at least one file via thegenerated additional file system.
 7. The system of claim 6, wherein theadditional file system is a virtual archives file system, wherein theprocessor further performs: decompressing the archive via adecompression module of an archive processing module corresponding tothe archive, wherein decompressing the archive generates the at leastone file; and exposing the at least one file to the application, via atleast one interface provided by the virtual archives file system.
 8. Thesystem of claim 7, wherein the processor further performs: mounting thevirtual archives file system to a directory; storing, in the directory,the at least one file to expose the at least one file to theapplication; accessing, by the application, the directory to perform anoperation on the at least one file.
 9. The system of claim 6, whereinthe processor further performs: receiving, by the additional filesystem, a request from the application to access the at least one file;providing, by the additional file system, the at least one file to theapplication, wherein the at least one file has already been stored inthe additional file system via a decompression of the archive, andwherein the decompression of the archive occurs before receiving therequest to access the at least one file.
 10. The system of claim 6,wherein the additional file system is accessible to the application viaan I/O manager provided by an operating system that supports thatoperating system file system, and wherein the additional file systemallows at least read and write operations on the at least one file viathe I/O manager.
 11. An article of manufacture, wherein the article ofmanufacture performs operations on a machine, the operations comprising:determining that an archive that includes at least one file is presentin association with an operating system file system; generating anadditional file system for accessing the archive; including thegenerated additional file system in the operating system file system;and allowing an application to access the at least one file via thegenerated additional file system.
 12. The article of manufacture ofclaim 11, wherein the additional file system is a virtual archives filesystem, the operations further comprising: decompressing the archive viaa decompression module of an archive processing module corresponding tothe archive, wherein decompressing the archive generates the at leastone file; and exposing the at least one file to the application, via atleast one interface provided by the virtual archives file system. 13.The article of manufacture of claim 12, the operations furthercomprising: mounting the virtual archives file system to a directory;storing, in the directory, the at least one file to expose the at leastone file to the application; accessing, by the application, thedirectory to perform an operation on the at least one file.
 14. Thearticle of manufacture of claim 11, the operations further comprising:receiving, by the additional file system, a request from the applicationto access the at least one file; providing, by the additional filesystem, the at least one file to the application, wherein the at leastone file has already been stored in the additional file system via adecompression of the archive, and wherein the decompression of thearchive occurs before receiving the request to access the at least onefile.
 15. The article of manufacture of claim 11, wherein the additionalfile system is accessible to the application via an I/O manager providedby an operating system that supports that operating system file system,and wherein the additional file system allows at least read and writeoperations on the at least one file via the I/O manager.
 16. A methodfor deploying computing infrastructure, comprising integratingcomputer-readable code into a computing system, wherein the code incombination with the computing system is capable of performing:determining that an archive that includes at least one file is presentin association with an operating system file system; generating anadditional file system for accessing the archive; including thegenerated additional file system in the operating system file system;and allowing an application to access the at least one file via thegenerated additional file system.
 17. The method of claim 16, whereinthe additional file system is a virtual archives file system, whereinthe code in combination with the computing system is further capable ofperforming: decompressing the archive via a decompression module of anarchive processing module corresponding to the archive, whereindecompressing the archive generates the at least one file; and exposingthe at least one file to the application, via at least one interfaceprovided by the virtual archives file system.
 18. The method of claim17, wherein the code in combination with the computing system is furthercapable of performing: mounting the virtual archives file system to adirectory; storing, in the directory, the at least one file to exposethe at least one file to the application; accessing, by the application,the directory to perform an operation on the at least one file.
 19. Themethod of claim 16, wherein the code in combination with the computingsystem is further capable of performing: receiving, by the additionalfile system, a request from the application to access the at least onefile; providing, by the additional file system, the at least one file tothe application, wherein the at least one file has already been storedin the additional file system via a decompression of the archive, andwherein the decompression of the archive occurs before receiving therequest to access the at least one file.
 20. The method of claim 16,wherein the additional file system is accessible to the application viaan I/O manager provided by an operating system that supports thatoperating system file system, and wherein the additional file systemallows at least read and write operations on the at least one file viathe I/O manager.